This is a comprehensive evaluation of modalities of treatment of poisoned patients. Adsorbents, cathartics, and emetics have been examined. A new model of adsorbent efficacy in simulated gut contents with a panel of test drugs has shown that maximum adsorbent capacity, not affinity, is best related to in vivo efficacy. Adsorbents vary 30-fold in capacity, and newer adsorbents, not used medically, are orders of magnitude better than commonly employed agents. Cathartics are without efficacy in poisoning with therapeutic drugs. Neither osmotic cathartics (d-mannitol and d-sorbitol) nor irritant oils (castor oil) diminish drug adsorption or enhance efficacy of adsorbents. Newer apomorphine analogs are 10 times more potent than apomorphine with minimal toxicity. The vomiting of particulate markers of stomach contents, simulating undissolved pill fragments, follows a different time course than production of soluble markers. Increasing the emetic dose does not enhance recovery of stomach contents on the first two vomiting episodes, but does prolong vomiting and increase total recovery of markers by one-fourth.